“We wouldn’t get them”: the Fleetwood Mac member who had to approve of Stevie Nicks
Bringing in a new member to any band isn’t something that any musician should take lightly. The idea of any fresh blood coming into the mix could either upset the dynamic or bring out the best in every member of the group, depending on what kind of energy they bring to the table right off the bat. Although Lindsey Buckingham was everything that Fleetwood Mac needed when looking for a guitarist, there was nowhere that he went in those days that didn’t include Stevie Nicks coming with him.
Then again, Fleetwood Mac did everything based on instinct in their prime. Although Peter Green may not have been long for their lineup when he began losing himself to LSD, they figured the best thing to do would be to go with the flow with Bob Welch, which inadvertently made them a far more interesting group by blending their old bluesy sound with the kind of jazzy edge he brought to the table.
And when Welch had had enough, Buckingham seemed like the perfect choice. Aside from his fantastic vocal skills and knowledge of pop songwriting, his guitar playing was one of the most unique approaches anyone had used, playing only with his fingers and creating the kind of cascading rhythms that seemed to be reserved for folk musicians. So, how did Nicks end up factoring into the equation?
Considering Buckingham was the only one who got the call to join the group, he put his foot down and insisted that Nicks join as well. They had cut their teeth together as a duo in Buckingham Nicks, and since they could help each other finish songs, they acted as a great foil to each other, even if it meant that they would be at each other’s throats a few albums later when Rumours got underway.
But there was more than one great songwriter to go around in the group. In the days when Welch was steering the band forward, Christine McVie was the one helping them reach the top of the charts as well, and if any other female rockers were going to join their ranks, the rest of the band would have to be sure that things didn’t get testy the minute that both of them walked into the room.
Buckingham may have been a valuable asset, but Christine remembers Mick Fleetwood coming to her specifically to ask for her approval of Buckingham and Nicks, saying, “Mick was wise. He told me that if I didn’t like Stevie, we wouldn’t get them in the band because he knew that having two women that didn’t get along would be a nightmare.” It was one thing for them to relate to each other as people, but the real clencher was hearing them sing together.
As soon as the band locked in on singing the harmonies on tunes like ‘Say You Love Me’, Christine knew that there was something else at work here. They had stumbled upon songwriting veterans, and they weren’t about to let one of their chances at the big time slip away when making tunes like ‘Rhiannon’ and ‘Landslide’.
The band were already integrated perfectly during their time together, but despite having three songwriters, it never seemed to interfere with the music. They could get into more than a few heated arguments behind the scenes, but given how dire things eventually got, Christine never seemed to phone it in when working with her new bandmates.
